Diagnostic scan tools are designed to diagnose problems in a vehicle. The diagnostic scan tool communicates and diagnoses problems with the vehicle via software stored in a memory. The memory may be internal or external to the scan tool. The diagnostic software used to diagnose the vehicle is often stored on memory devices such as a compact flash (CF) card. Additionally, data collected by the diagnostic scan tool is often stored on the same CF card. However, the CF card has limited memory and the diagnostic software often takes up most of the memory space on the CF card. Thus, data received from the vehicle that can be stored for later retrieval is limited.
The operating system used in the diagnostic scan tool varies with the manufacturers of the tool and is often proprietary in nature. The various flash memories (USB flash drive, memory stick, SD card, etc.) that can be purchased off-the-shelf are typically formatted for either the Windows® operating system (OS) by Microsoft® or Mac X from Apple® and thus, are not compatible with proprietary operating systems used by scan tool manufactures. For example, the flash memory device is typically format using DOS FAT16/FAT32 file system for use in personal computers, cameras and personal digital assistants. Therefore, if a flash memory device purchased off-the-shelf is inserted into a scan tool, the scan tool may not recognize the flash memory device in order to read it or write onto it.
There is a need to be able to read and write onto USB flash memory device that is purchased off-the-shelf regardless of the operating system that the memory device and the scan tool are formatted for.